My nightmare came true.  Fighter is sick.

(actually no la, it never even crossed my mind wtf I am overly optimistic that way.)

He started with a cough over the weekend.  At first I didn’t think anything because he sometimes chokes on his own saliva wtf.  But the cough persisted.

When he’s not coughing, he’s still uber cheerful though! What did we do to deserve this joy of a baby.

(Digression: I suddenly thought maybe it would have been apt if we named him a name that means joy since he’s so full of happiness.  Googled ‘boys name meaning joy’ and got Abhayananda. Er how about no. Lolol.)

The next morning his cough was still there.  And he started giving me these very pitiful looks accompanied by piteous whines while I packed his diaper bag to take him to the pediatrician.

Like this!

Gave him his sweater and socks to keep him warm.

But like I said, when he’s not coughing he forgets about it and cheers up as usual.

See  his excited face hahaha he thought the nurse playing with him.

The doctor listened to his breathing and flipped him over so he could listen to his back also he giggle hahaha everything is a game to you huh Fighter!

Our doctor was damn amused hahaha.

Anyway it’s nothing serious.  Thank Buddha.  He had some mucus which was dripping into his throat causing it to tickle so the doctor gave me some decongestants and told me to watch out for a ‘fruity cough’, a sign that the cold is progressing to his chest.

We actually went back again today because I got worried this morning after hearing some wheeziness in his cough.  Doctor said it’s still not too bad and gave us some anti inflammatory meds and Ventolin to prevent it from getting worse.

So that’s our first experience with Fighter falling sick!  Cross fingers he gets better soon.

Not super sick la can still put him on tummy time #Asianmom

And he still can smile. Hehehe

Those eyes <3

However it doesn’t stop him from acting all manja and pitiful so we’ll give him more attention.

Mommy, the cough hurts my throat…

Will you give me a kiss and make it all better?

Mommy!! You’re not listening!!!

I hate that camera.

P/S: Imma try to remember and watermark the photos taken with my Sony Xperia Z1. Quality is awesome!

I’ve probably blogged about this before (if not here, then on my Dayre) but Fighter hasn’t always been the happiest child.

When he first got home, all he did was suck milk and snooze.  Then he got a little more alert but he was always frowning and grumpy.  I even started calling him Grumpy Pants because of all the attitude he was giving.

Eventually though we realized (with some help from our pediatrician – silly us!) that he was a little colicky.  He almost always had snot up his nose blocking his airways so when he drank milk, he ended up sucking in a lot of air and getting himself a gassy tummy.  So whenever he cried or grunted or whined, he was suffering from stomach pains and we had no idea. D: D:

So now that we knew, armed with a nasal spray prescribed by the doctor I’d go into battle with Fighter (geddit geddit) everyday and spray his nose every few hours.  I should get a medal for this wtf not easy ok have to catch him by surprise and do it very quickly so he doesn’t turn his head away, but at the same time my aim needs to be damn accurate cos his nostrils are so small!  Ninja Aud to the rescue wtf.

Right now I think Fighter still can’t recognize people, but when he can, no prizes for guessing who he’ll hate.  The person who springs unpleasantly on him and shoots water into his nose. 🙁

Anyway, the nasal spray turned out to be not enough. He has a lot of snot, maybe he inherited sinus issues from me.  I bought an aspirator but even that wouldn’t dislodge all the boogers.

So I did what we’re not supposed to do (according to Baby Center anyway).  Every morning I charge at him with a Q-tip and dig his boogers out.  It’s the best way to clear his passageways and I am DAMN GOOD at it.  Got skills one.  Wet one end of the Q-tip, swoop it at the sides of his nostrils, twist (to grab the boogers) and slide out.  Then do the same with the dry end to wipe up any remaining wetness.

Obviously he shouts the house down but immediately after that he can breathe so well.  I’m waiting for the day he makes the connection between this awful nose digging and breathing well so he can stop giving me a hard time wtf.

Anyway with all this consistent clearing of his nose, his tummy problems subsided and his mood flipped 180 degrees.  He is now the smiliest baby I’ve ever seen!!! Not that I’ve seen that many babies la.

This was one of his first few smiles!

This is one of my favorite batches of photos of him!  Smile until so sweet!!! *hearts in eyes*

And this one he just looks so happy.  And fat and goofy. Hahahah.

I’m soooooo happy that he has such a happy disposition!  He does have his crying moments of course, but generally he’s very smily and easy to take care of.  Sometimes I wonder if this is my reward for going through preeclampsia hahaha.  Like the Universe can’t possibly put me through another bout of shit with a cranky baby after all I’ve been through.  If so, it’s worth it!

His default mood is good hahaha.  I think he really takes after Fatty and me cos we both smile a lot, and I’m rarely in a bad mood.

I’m putting down a few memorable incidents so I can look back on this time.

Incident 1:

Fighter was awake, playing by himself in his cot.  I crept up on him to look at him and at first he didn’t see me.  But then he suddenly looked up, saw me and did a double take. Hahaha cos he didn’t expect me to be there.  Then he gave me this big beautiful sunny smile like he was so happy to see me. Hehehe.

Also many times, he’s woken up by himself and I go to see him and he immediately gives me a huge smile. :)))

Incident 2:

The minute you look at him and smile at him, he’ll smile back.  It’s like he can’t resist.  Like he’s so socially adept that his reflex is to not be rude and smile back. Lol.  Then if you keep smiling and talking to him, he’ll start laughing and kicking around.

The other day he was being cranky in the room so Fatty carried him outside to where Fatty’s sister and friend were sitting.  He was pouting and acting grumpy but sister and friend started waving and cooing at him.

He where can resist like this!!! His pout actually started twitching HAHAHA.  And you could see him struggling to resist the mouth turning up into a grin.

Fatty patted his cheek and said “aiya you want to smile right? Just smile la you know you want to…” And this Fighter really broke out into a grin. HAHAHAHA SO EASY ONE.

 Incident 2a:

Same thing happened a few days later.  He was grouching again while I was carrying him and I met Fatty’s brother on the stairs.  Like I said, he’s normally happy so the brother was surprised to see him grouchy.  He said, “eh today not good mood ah?”

But!  Fatty’s brother was smiling at him.  Fighter’s Achilles heel wtf.  Again he broke out into a smile hahahaha.

Incident 3:

Yesterday Fighter was crazy grumpy.  Kept crying and wanting to be picked up and cuddled; I suspect he’s going through his third leap.

He was so grumpy that he was determined to stay grumpy and bask in his own bad mood. Lol.  How I know?

Because we were trying to make him smile.  And he smiled at first, although just a small smile, not his usual big grin.  Like he was trying to control it hahaha.

And then later he put his foot down.  Learn from past mistakes already wtf.  When we went in front of him and smiled and talked to him, he purposely wouldn’t look at us WTF.  Don’t look at us smile, don’t need to smile back. HAHAHAHA LIKE THIS ALSO CAN.

He always always looks at people talking to him so it’s very obvious now he’s studiously avoiding our gaze. Hahahaha.

Incident 4:

Don’t know if this counts.  But if you cannot take horror movies, read no further wtf.

I was pumping milk this morning so I placed Fighter on the bed in front of me. He started looking at the corner of the ceiling and smiling and laughing!!

This is the second time he’s done this while looking at that exact same spot in my room. I know babies like looking at lights or fans or whatever.  Fighter himself loves lights; he’s always gazing upwards at lights and chandeliers so I’m used to it.  But that area he was looking at is the corner of the ceiling where there is NOTHING.  No decoration, no lights, just plain wall.

He never does this anywhere else. The first time he did it was at night and I was alone and I nearly shit my pants.  I know it’s not mere fascination with a new object because when he’s fascinated he goes quiet and just looks interestedly at the object for a long time.  This time, he’s behaving like when we  talk and play with him…. he smiled and wiggled his body like what he does when he’s excited.  Then he paused as though listening to someone.  Then smile and giggle again. O_0

ARGH WHY I WRITE THIS NOW I’M ALONE AGAIN TONIGHT

To end this blogpost on a nonscary note, here’s a video Fatty took of me singing and playing with Fighter.

This is something I’d been feeling for some time.  I’d been wanting to blog about it too but I didn’t have the time and I wasn’t sure how I wanted to put it into words.  But today something happened and I thought I MUST write it down here, if only for closure’s sake.

I don’t consider myself a jealous person.  It could be because Fatty gives me A LOT of security and I’ve never had any reason to doubt him (thanks Fats!) so I’ve never had to be the jealous girlfriend in our relationship.  And I’ve never felt jealous or envious of friends when good things happen to them partly because I am super uncompetitive and partly because if they’re my friend the happiness I feel on their behalf usually overpowers any feelings of envy I might have.

So when Fighter came along, I was totally unprepared for this huge wave of possessiveness and jealousy that engulfed me.

I’m lucky enough to have had a confinement lady for 1.5 months, and that Fatty got us a maid who lives with us to assist in the caring of the baby.  Both were/are awesome – the confinement auntie did everything I expected and other things I didn’t even expect of her, and our maid has been fantastic with Fighter; she genuinely seems to care about him and takes a lot of pleasure in taking care of him.

But instead of feeling grateful or relieved, everyday I struggled with this ugly jealousy. The confinement auntie has done this for 17 years and our maid has 5 kids of her own so they’re obviously a lot more experienced than I am in handling babies.  In the early days when Fighter got home, if he cried I couldn’t get him to calm down, but the minute the auntie picked him up he quietened down instantly and went to sleep.  I felt inadequate and useless, even though it was my confinement and she was helping me.

And when the auntie went home, my jealousy stemmed from the maid instead.  Like I said, she really seemed to like Fighter plus in retrospect I think she’s just trying to do a good job, so she observed how the auntie took care of him, and when the auntie left, she just picked up and did EVERYTHING for him.

I’d wake up in the morning with bursting boobs and find that she’d already bathed and gave him his morning feed.  And instead of being busy with baby, all I had to do was lock myself up in the room and pump milk.  Maybe that sounds like heaven for some women, but it drove me crazy.  I WANTED to do all these for him but a stranger was doing all this, and way better than I was!

In retrospect, all this was easily resolvable because it was just a matter of managing her; she’s under our employment after all.  And it’s a good problem to have because she’s just being overzealous and passionate about her duties lol.  Wouldn’t it be much worse if she hated Fighter and neglected him? I talked to Wendy about this and that’s what she told me, but I struggled to see this.

The green monster of jealousy really blinded me wtf.  When she bathed baby, she robbed me of the experience.  When she bottle fed him, she took away my bonding time with him and relegated me to being a cow wtf.

Eventually, as we both got used to things we worked out a schedule of sorts.  I do all feeds when I’m at home and I fixed Fighter’s bath times so I could make sure to be around for them.  I do the night feeds as well, except for one because I hate pumping milk and if I have to wake up in the middle of the night, I might as well feed Fighter myself than pump.

And to her credit, I think she sensed my insecurity and made sure to defer to me or get my approval before doing anything.

And yet the possessiveness persisted.  Fighter started learning to smile, and he seemed to smile at everyone except me!!! Even worse, he always smiled when he saw her.  I nearly went mad wtf.

I searched “how will my baby know who his mother is” and “what if baby loves nanny more” so much until I think it’s saved on my phone already wtf.  (it’s a common topic in forums I guess a lot of mothers feel this way FOL) Results seemed inconclusive – articles said he will recognize mother’s voice from inside the womb.  But then how!!! I also talk to my maid what maybe he hears her voice and thinks that’s his mom leh!!!

I let it slip to my dad that I was worrying about this and he assured me that children will always know who their parents are, and that they know by the voice, smell and heartbeat. My grandma raised Ooib when he was a baby and he was super attached to her, but at the end he still knows who his mother is.  I wasn’t sure about the first part but the second convinced me – if my brother still doesn’t know our mom I’ll eat my hat wtf.

Nevertheless, the feelings of insecurity still nagged at me although I told myself to stay rational and did my best to banish these thoughts to the back of my head.

But then, in the past week or two, Fighter has been smiling more and more…. and best of all, the minute he sees me now, he breaks out in the most beautiful toothless grin you’ve ever seen. :))))))))))))

Ok la I think he just smiles when he sees any human because he’s just an attention whore like that. Lol. But I somehow think… he smiles the most when he sees me now. 🙂

And today while visiting my grandparents in Penang, Fighter got cranky and started wailing.  My mom tried to soothe him but he was having none of it.

So I asked her to pass him to me.  And when I held him, he snuggled against my chest and fell quiet right away.

He knows his momma!!!!!

My finest moment yet wtf.

I was bursting with pride but I was like act cool, act cool.

Maybe he just likes me holding him, I dunno.  But it’s amazing to know that after all the craziness and slogging day by day, he knows me and maybe loves me as much as I love him. 🙂